July, 2009

The latest maddeningly brief video from BJPenn.com shows the Prodigy hanging out at his gym with Fedor Emelianenko and Fedor’s constant road-dog Gegard Mousasi. But when and why did Fedor fly to Hawaii? [Ed. note: Right, he's in California this time. And so is Fedor. Got it.] As usual, there are no answers, and the mystery of BJ grows. Still, the idea of Fedor and Gegard joining Penn’s already stacked training camp should give Kenny Florian fans the heebie-jeebies. Assuming, of course, that BJ actually trains with these people. All we know is, directly after this fight, Emelianenko jumped out of BJ’s pool. And he was at the bottom of the deep end at the time. And he was standing on one leg.

"I guess you could say that two weeks ago I was on crutches…I’m still talking right now with my cornermen and my management about moving the fight back to October or me just not fighting [Melendez]…

[Training is] moving right along, I guess you could say. I’ve decided to go with the non-training method for this fight – kind of play it by ear and see what happens. There’s a lot of things I couldn’t do. I’m not training like I was able to for the first fight, and we’re going to see what happens…That doesn’t mean I’m not taking this fight serious. It doesn’t mean that I’m not going to show up and fight my ass off. Have I ever not showed up and fought my [expletive] ass off?…

“Every time Rampage makes a joke about black people, he talks about our features. He says things that someone in the Klan would say to us. When he made that ‘black on black crime’ comment towards Rashad, I didn’t see any black people laughing at that, but the white people was. They say, ‘Rampage is so cool and so funny.’ How is that funny? He then said it three or four times. It’s a minstrel show.

Anyone that watched that video know he’s lying about not knowing who I am. We met before that. But he shouldn’t be worried about me. He should be worried about Rashad! My thing is the truth will come out and we will see how it makes us look. Memphis is a highly black-populated area. We’ll see how many blacks show up to his fight.”

(In light of this fight being moved from a ring to a cage, "Babalu" would now like to amend his statement about where Mousasi will be peeing.)

Good news, fight fans. Attempts at salvaging the wreckage of the cursed S.S. Affliction have already resulted in the resurrection of one main card bout. The scheduled fight between Renato “Babalu” Sobral and Gegard Mousasi has now officially been picked up by Strikeforce for their August 15 event in San Jose. Strikeforce sent out a press release announcing the addition this afternoon, and confirming that Sobral’s Strikeforce light heavyweight championship will be on the line. Naturally, this puppy has been added to the televised portion of the card, so the outlook just got a little brighter for Strikeforce despite some recent holes appearing in the lineup.

So there’s one good fight we’ll still get to see. Now Strikeforce’s big question is what to do about Nick Diaz, who lost his scheduled opponent when Joe Riggs had to pull out. At least two good welterweights just had their calendars free up when the Affliction cancelation left Jay Hieron and Paul “Semtex” Daley without a place to beat each other up. Might one of them swoop in to try their luck against Diaz? We’re expecting to hear something on that one soon, so don’t wander off…

On how Rogers first came up as a possible replacement: "We never asked to fight Fedor. We are under contract with Strikeforce and happy to be [with] Strikeforce. We have not sought any bouts outside of Strikeforce. We were however approached to fight Fedor by Affliction. Of course we agreed to the fight immediately provided all the details could be worked out among the many parties involved."

On Fedor: "He is the unqualified best in the game. The quintessential fighter. Accepting a fight against him on nine days notice may seem foolish or simply a money move; but it is not. The bottom line is you never know when, or if you will get another chance. Brett is not in this game to be good, he is not in it to be great; his goal is to be the best. How, as a fighter, could he have turned down the possibility of taking his greatest test? No chance he walks away from that opportunity. When Fedor mentioned Brett by name as the replacement he wanted we were very honored."

We’re less than two months away from the premiere of The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights, and it’s hard not to get excited about the first brief shots of Kimbo Slice walking out to the TUF cage and pacing around before a fight, with Rampage Jackson possibly in his corner (see the -00:09 mark). Plus, the fact that Jackson and Rashad Evans will hate each other’s guts from day one could bring back some of the Tito vs. Ken magic of season 3. So far, everybody involved is playing it very close to the vest in regards to how the fights played out this season. But the interview after the jump may suggest that Slice shook off the haters and did, at the very least, aight.

If you haven’t been paying attention to the internet lately, you might not be aware of the phenomenon known as the ‘pool jump.’ Basically a dude jumps out of three feet of water and on to the side of a pool in order to prove what a great athlete he is. The whole thing started with Jarron Gilbert, who just got drafted by the Chicago Bears. Not to be outdone, UFC lightweight champ B.J. Pennpulled off the same jump and helped to show that MMA fighters are every bit the athletes that NFL players are. Score one for us, right?

But then along comes Washington Redskins wide receiver Keith Eloi who raises the bar by jumping out of the pool backwards. Damn the NFL and their constant one-upsmanship. We can’t let this go unavenged, MMA fighters. Quick, somebody get Georges St. Pierre on the phone. Tell him we need him to backflip out of a pool and land with both feet in a half-full glass of water. The very future of our sport depends on it.

(‘It’s quite simple, gentleman. All we require is a suitcase full of money, a crate of automatic rifles, twelve underaged prostitutes, and a helicopter to take us to the airport. Oh, and the helicopter must be painted with the M-1 Global logo. Do we have a deal?’)

“This is the moment of truth that the UFC has talked about. Fedor and I are here in the States. If they want to come out and fly here, we are ready to conduct negotiations. Of course it still doesn’t imply we are ready to accept any conditions they’ll throw at us. We want to talk to the UFC about having Fedor compete against some of their fighters, but only within the framework of co-promotional efforts with M-1 Global.”

(Seriously. The man showers after every workout, and always uses fresh needles. Image courtesy of CombatLifestyle.)

Thank God for the city of Japan — where else would fighters who are wrongly accused of steroid use get a chance to redeem themselves? According to an article posted yesterday on Tatame (via BloodyElbow), two such innocent victims could be meeting in the ring at the end of this year:

Owner of three heavyweight championships (EliteXC, Cage Rage and Cage Warriors), Antonio "Pezão" Silva is training to return to Sengoku on September 23rd, and now has even more motivation to win. "I have two more fights in Sengoku, and, winning this fight… I’ll fight for the title in December. They’re going to create a championship and I’ll fight for the title," said the American Top Team heavyweight, who is still without an opponent.

"I don’t know who it could be, I don’t have the slightest idea," he affirmed. But, given the choice, Pezão already has someone he’d like to see on the other side of the ring. "I’d like it to be Josh Barnett, since he won’t be fighting in the United States. He has a contract with Sengoku and is trained, so who knows why this fight wouldn’t happen," suggested the fighter, whose steroid suspension in the United States ends next week.

"I’m gonna beat him skill for skill, round by round, I’m gonna take him apart, and I may finish him in the first round." So says the fiercely confident Kenny Florian in the above trailer for UFC 101 (August 8th, Philly). Florian clearly sees his lightweight title fight against BJ Penn as the moment his entire career has been leading up to. An oddly clean-shaven Joe Rogan tells us that Penn has been training harder than ever , and says "I think we’re going to see a new, invigorated BJ Penn, and that’s a bad sign for everybody in the lightweight division."

Later, Dana White proclaims that "the Anderson Silva/Forrest Griffin fight has all the makings to be fight of the year," and Joe suggests that Griffin take a page from the Dan Henderson playbook: "[Forrest] is one of the biggest guys in the light-heavyweight division. If he gets Anderson to the ground, and he can hold onto him and beat on him for three rounds, it is conceivable that Forrest can walk away with a decision." Wow, you hear that Forrest? It’s conceivable! Onward to victory!